If you've strolled through your local farmers market lately, you've noticed that for most of us around the continent, we're seeing the peak of harvest season. Farmers pile their tables high with intensely red tomatoes, brilliantly hued hot peppers, earthy potatoes, luscious fruits of multiple varieties, and...

Summer's heat has finally reached us all, even our northernmost Ethicurean colleagues, and if you wonder why you haven't heard much from many of us — well, you can imagine us with dirt on our hands and knees, working away in our Victory Gardens as our crops take off. And since the work never ends, I'll keep...

Last Saturday I attended the launch of the Slow Food Nation Victory Garden at the foot of San Francisco's City Hall, on a site what was recently an ornamental lawn. The garden, which takes its name from the World War II campaign to get citizens to grow their own food to support the war effort, is intended...

Lately we've seen a bumper crop of articles extolling the virtues of gardening. Sure, it's a great way to reduce your food costs at a time when those prices are experiencing rapid growth spurts. But it's more than that: gardens can be environmentally friendly and even (in our dreams, perhaps) politically...

Memorial Day weekend, though mostly seen as the first taste of summer vacation, also gives us time to reflect on the meaning of patriotism. For those of us who garden, it offers a little of both, especially now that more and more people are viewing their Victory Gardens as a way to save our country and our...

Maybe a collective spring fever is making its way around the Internet, but I've seen and read more about gardens lately than I have in a long time. If you somehow missed the hubbub this past week, Michael Pollan published a piece in last Sunday's New York Times titled "Why Bother?" Addressing the issues of...

We've just dug out from a mild winter storm here in northern Ohio (only a few inches of snow, but topped with a thick glaze of ice), and I'm finally able to see the ground emerge from that blanket of cold, frozen precipitation. The weather lately has fueled a number of dreams of sunny, tropical climes where...

Witchhazel is blooming at my house, a sign that spring is nearly here. I'm planning my garden, which will be my second one ever, if it comes to fruition. I started my first garden by reading piles of books. I spent the winter lingering over every kitchen garden book Amazon had to offer, littering my Sunset...

We just received the first of the new trees for our orchard: a peach, nectarine, and fig. Some apples are on the way via U.S. Mail. The trees are “bare root,” which means that they look a whole lot like sticks with roots. Their small size makes them good mail-order travelers, a handy option for...